The written word on love, sex, and ageing

In this edition of Our Generation’s sex column, we review a classic publication that paved the way for books about older people and sex: The New Love and Sex After 60. 

First published in 1976, and last revised in 2002, this book is still in print at its publisher and is available as an e-book. Judging by online reviews, there are still readers who find it relevant. 

But is it any good? Read on to find out what the National Seniors Research team thought about it, and what we can learn from it when looking for—or writing—other books on this topic.

In 1976, American power couple Robert N. Butler and Myrna I. Lewis published the first edition of their book Love and Sex After Sixty. 

At the time, there was relatively little academic research into older people’s sexual needs and experiences, let alone publicly accessible books.  

The book had a profound impact for this reason alone. Thinking about its context, we can see other reasons for its success. 

It was published a few years after the 1960s sexual revolution and four years after Alex Comfort’s bestselling The Joy of Sex, both of which were likely influences. 

But when we do the maths, we can see its senior target audience would, at the time, have been born in 1916 or earlier. In other words, it was aimed at generations of people who were already middle aged or older when the sexual revolution occurred and who were relatively unlikely to have encountered many sex manuals or public discussions about sex in their lifetimes. 

That must have made it a pretty big deal. Add to that, simply making the case that many older people can, and do, have sex and continue to experience sexual desire throughout their lives was a radical move that contradicted ageist stereotypes. 

It is unsurprising that this is the book’s central message, given Butler was the geriatrician accredited with coining the word ‘ageism’ in 1968. 

He was also the first director of the US National Institute on Aging. On the very day he assumed that office he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his 1975 book Why Survive? Being Old in America that has been described as a “political manifesto” and “call to arms” against ageism. 

Love and Sex After 60 didn’t make quite the same critical splash. But it was certainly popular enough to be revised and republished three times— in 1988, 1993, and 2002. 

By the time of its fourth and final edition, retitled The New Love and Sex After 60, it had lived through many changes in the sexual landscape, including the advent and treatment of HIV/AIDS, the invention of Viagra, and the commencement of the digital age.

It had also lived through decades of challenge to traditional Western gender roles—a topic Lewis devoted her career to through her feminist research and advocacy. 

But 2002 was 23 years ago, with a lot of water flowing under the bridge since then. So, how does the book stack up today?

It is unfortunate, however, that the rest of the book does not really live up to this promise. 

In most aspects, that is not the authors’ fault—it is simply a consequence of the passage of time. 

Most pressingly, Chapters 2-7, which comprise the first 200 pages of the book, concern numerous aspects of physical health and treatment of medical problems. Some of this is relatively timeless because it is so basic, such as general preventative advice for staying healthy, but for that reason is not very interesting. Let’s face it, it’s not why we read a book about love and sex. 

On the other hand, some of the health information is too much of its time and is, therefore, out of date. 

It was also written for a US audience so when it gets specific about costs and medicine brands, it is just not useful here in Australia (and also possibly outdated). 

If nothing else, it is unclear which bits are dated and which (if any) are still current, making it a risky read for people who want up-to-date health information. More generally, the lengthy emphasis on medical matters isn’t really that sexy. 

Perhaps it was included because that was Butler’s area of intellectual comfort or to lend the book an air of scientific legitimacy. Whatever the reason, these first chapters are not page-turners.

The later chapters focus on emotional and social aspects of love and sex. However, these too have limitations. 

For example, these chapters address topics related to love, sex, and the digital world. But the internet and social media, including dating apps and digital scams, have changed love and sex so much since 2002 that the book cannot help being wildly out of date about such matters. 

The book also has a quaintly middle-class flavour, for example in scenarios about single women feeling socially excluded from dinner parties. 

While this may still happen, the book’s emphasis on it makes it seem like it is from far earlier than the 2000s. Moreover, it is rather fixated on questions of erectile dysfunction. 

While an important topic, its emphasis on this has some negative consequences for other sexual topics. 

For one, it centres a very traditional model of sexual intercourse and doesn’t adequately explore other common practices such as oral sex. As we discussed in Exploring sexuality when your capacity changes, (Autumn 2024, page 36) this emphasis can be disempowering and frustrating for many older people. The book is surprisingly negative about sex toys, dismissing them as mostly a waste of money. 

Its discussions of women’s sexual desire and agency sometimes take a back seat to how women can help men with erectile issues. 

There is even some painful sounding advice on stimulating women’s genitals that is probably best avoided, or at least negotiated with some clear communication! 

All this comes across as unadventurous and narrow to a 2024 audience—even a conservative one. 

For an LGBTIQ+ audience, it is next to irrelevant in many respects. The book assumes a binary-gendered and heterosexual readership throughout. It has one brief and rather superficial section called ‘Special issues in LGBT relationships’, and otherwise mentions lesbian, gay, and bisexual people only in the contexts of HIV/AIDS, amyl nitrate, and the demographic scarcity of elderly men. 

Despite the ‘T’ in the section’s acronym it does not deal with transgender issues at all beyond one confused sentence. 

In the authors’ defence, they call for more dialogue and research with LGBT people, and the background information they do give about lesbian, gay, and bisexual issues may be useful for readers new to LGBTIQ+ topics.

All of this suggests we need new sex guides for older people that build on these historic foundations but bring things up to date with who older people are today. 

The internet is surely the place a lot of people find sexual information. But for some, the comfort and privacy of a book is still a desirable resource. 

Quite a few books about sex and seniors have been published in recent years, demonstrating there is a market for this. 

In researching this article, we considered reviewing several others. 

To limit the field, we wanted to find books that were published for an Australian audience, less medically oriented, more up to date on the digital world, and sophisticated in their approach to diverse sexual experiences. 

Admittedly, we had trouble finding what we wanted. 

There is definitely room for someone to write this great book for us. But we then reminded ourselves that we are all different and will have our own preferences for good sex books. We may each even want several in our lives at once to meet different needs. 

We’re interested to hear from you on this. Send your book recommendations to research@nationalseniors.com.au and tell us why your preferred tome is a good one. If we can crowd source enough data on this topic, we’ll publish the results in a future issue.